Juliet Schor, Clothes Encounters (October 2004)

(author of Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, Scribner 2004)

●        Schor loves clothes, enjoys shopping and likes to look fashionable

          ○        Won’t admit this to her env. friends who are fashion minimalists

●        Fashion minimalism: Clothes are utilitarian objects whose presence in our lives should be tolerated grudgingly

●        Americans buying (and throwing away) clothes at record rates

          ○        2002 average am consumer acquired 52 new items of basic apparel (from 42 in 1996)

          ○        Entered era of disposable clothing

          ○        Average household throws away 1.3 pounds of textile waste a week

          ○        A billion pounds of used clothing exported each year

●        Rock-bottom prices explain this in part

          ○        .99 cent shirts at Old Navy

●        Price decline due to

          ○        Relentless pressure on wages now as low a seven or eight cents an hour in some Asian countries

          ○        Unaccounted-for env. costs

                    -        Toxic chemicals used in nearly all dyes

                    -        Commercial cotton cultivation is pesticide intensive

                    -        overgrazing and desertification in Asia go along with falling price of cashmere

                              ■        Is $40 dollar cashmere sweaters a good thing?

●        She rejects fashion minimalism because it

          ○        Trivializes clothes

          ○        Fails to comprehend our deep fascination with them

          ○        Clothing has been key to class struggles for social status

                    -        Individuals used fashion to construct own identity

                    -        Form short skits in the 20s as a way of flaunting conventional morality

                    -        1980s punks style as a statement against hypocrisy of mainstream culture

●        Nothing shallow about expressing values through what one wears

          ○        Depends on the values? Or if one expresses values other ways too

●        Clean Clothes Movement (in Europe) aims to express values of sustainability, justice and solidarity via clothes

          ○        Has resulted in some leading apparel chains committing to principles of labor rights and env. accountability

●        Schor is a fashion maximalist

●        Has a vision for clothes industry that includes

          ○        Re-localization of production

          ○        Growth of small-scale, designer-run workshops

          ○        Anchored in communities

          ○        Shift to higher-priced

          ○        More aesthetic garments

          ○        Made from sustainably produced, nontoxic fabrics

●        “Investment apparel” she owns

          ○        Nicely tailored pants with invisible double button to accommodate fluctuating waistline

          ○        Sumptuous wool scarf doubles as a shirt or headwear

          ○        Custom made linen tops and bottoms sewn by local producer

                    -        Picks exact colors

                    -        Clothes fit perfectly

                    -        Repaired quickly and w/o cost

●        Wants to show her friends can have personally expressive, ethically responsible wardrobe

●        Not that contemporary consumers are too maternalistic, its that there not materialistic enough

          ○        When we choose disposability over respect, love, and commitment for the objects we fashion into our material world